All summer long, Count Wallace had struggled to suppress his irritation.
And with good reason—he'd hoped to finish Ryan's case at the Disciplinary Committee before summer began. However, contrary to his expectations, the committee's convening was continually postponed, and Ryan's punishment kept getting delayed.
He knew perfectly well who was behind this.
*That fox, Baron Stanford.*
Baron Stanford not only tried desperately to protect Ryan, but also worked tirelessly to win over committee members to his side.
Because of this, more than one or two had defected to him over the summer.
Count Wallace ground his teeth.
Who would have thought that bastard Ryan was the old man's illegitimate son?
One day, when they encountered each other at army headquarters, Baron Stanford had clicked his tongue demonstratively and spoken in a moralizing tone:
"I hear you've been having considerable trouble lately because of your offspring. If all the sons in the world were like Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Wilgrave, there'd be nothing to worry about."
Count Wallace had no answer to this.
By "offspring," Baron Stanford meant Henry Wallace—the son he'd had with Vivian.
The boy had been born sickly and suffered all manner of ailments from childhood.
Vivian doted on her firstborn. And though they'd later had a second son, her attention remained fixed on Henry.
*"In the Wallace family, having a firstborn boy is a rare occurrence. This means Henry is truly special. So I expect you to treat him with the utmost care."*
Vivian issued her demands as though instructing a tutor rather than addressing her husband.
The Count could not object to his wife's attitude.
He was the husband who had entered *her* family and inherited the count's title through marriage.[1]
> [1] **Matrilineal inheritance.** The original term used is *데릴사위* (derilsawi), a Korean term for a man who lives in his wife's family's home after marriage. Historically, this often meant the wife's family had no male heir, and the son-in-law assumed responsibility for continuing the family line and managing the household. This status was often considered less prestigious for a man.
The Queen had decreed that the right of succession in the Wallace family would remain with Vivian, the direct heir of the line.
This meant that if Vivian announced her divorce and remarried, he would lose his earldom entirely.
In Albion, inheritance rights were still granted primarily to men.
However, in the Wallace family, male heirs were so rare that—generation after generation—monarchs allowed the title of Earl of Wallace to be passed on in a kind of "lease" to whomever the eldest daughter chose.
Therefore, in order to maintain his position, Count Wallace did not dare contradict his wife or son.
*If you think about it, Ryan's birth was her fault.*
Though they called him Count Wallace, all of it existed only within the limits Vivian allowed.
"How could you give the Shankwood hunting grounds to Viscount Campbell? I've already announced to everyone that we're holding a gathering there this summer!"
Vivian had given away his favorite hunting grounds to another without a word. Upon learning of this, the Count had attacked her furiously with reproaches.
In response, Vivian had looked at him coldly and said:
**"Darling, the Shankwood hunting grounds belong to the Wallace family."**
Hearing this, the Count understood the hidden meaning.
Everything that belonged to the Wallace family belonged to *her*—which meant he could not question her decisions.
*Damn! Is this how I must live for the rest of my days?!*
He had been confident he would be able to dispose of all the Wallace family property at his own discretion. But contrary to his expectations, Vivian only created the *appearance* of his authority while preventing him from touching the family assets.
Having failed to achieve his goal, Count Wallace left the capital and went to the estate of one of his aristocratic friends. There—beyond the Wallace estates—he was treated with far greater respect.
Ryan's mother had been just a servant he'd amused himself with that summer at that estate.
He hadn't thought there was any problem with it. Didn't other aristocrats indulge themselves in similar ways?
So when the woman became pregnant and gave birth to a child—calling it his son—he ordered his most discreet servants to beat her severely and throw her out.
Hearing the maid had run away crying, clutching the baby, he was pleased. If she had any sense, she would never dare claim the child was his again.
Because she'd realized that next time, they would simply kill her.
After that, as Count Wallace expected, the maid never appeared again. Some time later, when his anger had subsided, he returned to the capital and continued living as his wife instructed.
During this time, he and Vivian had Henry.
The child was in poor health, but Count Wallace thought it was even better that way.
Vivian was occupied with Henry all day and no longer watched him as closely as before.
Instead, she drew closer to the descendant of a soothsayer who had served their family for generations.
It was on the advice of this soothsayer that she left for the countryside with Henry. The Count hoped the soothsayer would remain with Vivian—that she would spend her entire life in the wilderness.
But when Henry turned seven, he became so ill he nearly died.
The Count assumed Vivian would remain by her son's bedside without leaving. But she unexpectedly arrived in the capital and told him:
**"I know you have an illegitimate son. The soothsayer says this child could bear the devil's touch—a threat to our Henry's fate."**
Count Wallace was horrified that his wife knew about his bastard.
Anyone else was one thing, but Vivian had every right to demand a divorce on that basis alone.
Count Wallace immediately bowed his head in submission and began doing whatever she ordered.
*Find the bastard. And place him in the monastery the soothsayer spoke of until he comes of age.*
And so Count Wallace traced the servant girl he had ordered beaten and driven away all those years ago.
She had become a gravedigger's wife. And that trash he had never considered his son—that abandoned bastard—lived under the name **Ryan Wilgrave**.
It was the first day he'd actually seen Ryan.
The next day, he sent him to the most severe monastery in Albion.
He couldn't kill him. But he didn't wish him a long life either.
*Exactly until the age of twenty.*
He thought he'd somehow dispose of him when he turned twenty—just as the soothsayer had said. But two months before his twentieth birthday, Ryan fled the monastery. And when they met again, he was already a war hero who couldn't be dealt with so easily.
*Damn.*
Remembering the past, Count Wallace stared again into the fireplace.
A few weeks ago, his man at army headquarters had managed to intercept a letter addressed to Ryan under the guise of official business.
*Eloise... or something like that.*
A woman's name. So the Count assumed it was simply another code used in the military.
Since joining the force, Ryan hadn't been spotted with any woman. He couldn't have suddenly begun corresponding with someone.
So he'd intercepted the letter and tossed it aside.
If there was anything inside related to military affairs, opening it without reason risked incurring suspicion of espionage.
So he'd planned to keep it for a while, then drop it off somewhere in Ryan's office after sufficient time had passed.
However, a few days ago, Vivian arrived in the capital and gave him a thorough dressing-down.
**"Because of that bastard, my Henry is still suffering! I made you a member of the Disciplinary Committee, and you can't even punish some mongrel?"**
She scolded Count Wallace for his incompetence—then left.
Immediately after her departure, unable to contain his fury, he began hurling everything within reach into the fireplace in a rage.
The letter addressed to Ryan burned along with everything else.
*And what difference does it make?*
Letters got lost all the time. So this letter had simply never arrived.
*Knock-knock.*
Hearing a knock at the door, Count Wallace—without turning his head—said:
"Come in."
The door opened immediately, and his secretary entered. Seeing him, Count Wallace folded the newspaper and asked:
"So. Any news about that bastard Ryan?"
"Yes."
The secretary bowed low and replied:
**"They report that he is now in the capital of Gilia."**
Hearing this, Count Wallace chuckled.
The capital of Gilia. Not here. Not in Albion.
It would be even easier to deal with Ryan there. In fact, he wouldn't even have to do anything.
*Just let it slip that Ryan Wilgrave is there...*
And the inhabitants of Gilia would deal with him themselves.
---
At the same time.
*Eloise.*
Ryan sat in a small pub on the outskirts of Gilia's capital and, without realizing it, traced the name of the one he longed for in the dust that had settled on the table.